


a little game

by preromantics



Category: White Collar
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 17:21:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>El laughs and fixes the sloppy way Peter had re-tied his robe, patting the collar down. "Is it testing your limits?" she asks, because that's their game. Neal is the game.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	a little game

Peter tightens his robe when he edges into the kitchen, groaning when Elizabeth shoots him a sunny smile over the coffee machine, already dressed for work.

"He's --" Peter starts, cut off when El hands him a full mug, steaming at the top.

El pats his shoulder and leans in to press her lips against his cheek. "I know," she says.

Peter swallows his coffee and leans closer to her, leaning against the counter. "I know it's necessary," he says, "but does he have to be shirtless? In our dining room?"

El laughs and fixes the sloppy way Peter had re-tied his robe, patting the collar down. She hums a little in the back of her throat. "Is it testing your limits?" she asks, because that's their game. Neal is the game. Most of the time Peter has the vague sense that it's partly Neal's game, too, but they don't acknowledge it.

"Of course not," Peter says. He takes another sip of his coffee and leans back on his heels just slightly to see if he can see Neal at the table from here. He'd really only gotten to see Neal from the back, and El had probably already spent half her time in the kitchen peering out at him. It's -- Peter settles back on his feet and takes another sip of coffee.

(El and Peter's game usually starts and ends in the bedroom, or alone at home when Neal isn't a room over -- they say things, try and rile each other up with it. It's mostly to see who will give in first and admit they actually want Neal, rather than just using it against one another.

El likes to use Neal as the final card; she likes to get on top of Peter on the mattress and ride him while he holds on to the curve of her waist, and she likes to lean down, her hair on his chest and say, "What if I were Neal right now? On you like this?" -- He expects it by now, she started doing it before he even caught Neal, when he was mostly a nameless face to her and someone he obsessed over without meaning to.

They'd stopped when he was in prison, but now -- it's almost every night, and Peter should feel bad about it every morning he has to see Neal at work, and it's on the back of his mind when he walks downstairs, especially this morning with Neal _there_, except he can't bring himself to work out what it all means.

Especially since it can't actually mean anything, even though Peter knows that El has many opposite thoughts on the subject.)

"Go get dressed," El says, tapping his shoulder once more. "I'll finish the eggs."

Peter hesitates, leans in once to kiss her and ends up pressing her against the counter, his hands running from the swell of her hips and up, one hand moving to tip her head back. He keeps her like that, loving when she's pressed against him, licking into her mouth while he thumbs circles into her neck, letting her melt into him because it's still early in the morning, even if she's dressed.

She laughs when they lean back, presses her lips quick against his once more. "He's shirtless and barefoot," she says, a whisper against his neck, running her hands down his back.

Peter sucks in a breath through his nose. "In our dining room," he agrees. Her neck is soft, he loves her neck, even when her hair falls loose over it. He feels like paying the renovators currently at June's, the ones who have displaced Neal all the way to Peter's spare bedroom extra money -- although he's not entirely sure if he'd ask them to hurry up or to take longer with the incentive.

"Reading the _Times_," she laughs. They stand like that for a few minutes, the pan of butter behind her back sizzling loudly as she leans back into the counter with Peter over her, just pressed together, warm.

Neal walks in before they can break apart, and Peter turns around to see the amused expression on his face, the corners of his mouth quirked up. "I'm not interrupting, am I?" he asks, not without insinuation.

El slips out from under Peter's arm, flashing a smile at Neal. "Of course you aren't," she says, "not in our kitchen."

Neal frowns, overly dramatic. "Well that's a shame," he says.

Peter sighs -- it's too early for Neal, in his house, shirtless, the newspaper tucked under his arm. "Neal," he says, a light warning.

Neal shrugs at him. "Whatever you are cooking smells divine, El," he says, walking past Peter towards her.

El slaps Peter's shoulder, letting Neal inspect the stove -- where nothing is actually cooking. "Go get dressed," she tells him.

Peter doesn't need to be told twice, but he pauses before he leaves, leans in and curls his hand around the back of El's neck over her hair, and pulls her forward briefly, aware of Neal watching them from the stove. When he leans back, El's lips red and slick, he smiles at her and lets it carry over to Neal. "Be back," he says, a little more cheerful than he should be.

As he heads upstairs he can hear Neal in the background complimenting his robe to El, and the thing is, Peter isn't sure if he's being sarcastic or not because it's _Neal_, but he allows himself a small grin in the mirror, slightly exasperated at himself, as he knots his tie.

  
-

  
Neal still doesn't have a shirt on when Peter comes back downstairs, but he does have a pair of Peter's slippers on -- the ones Peter got from a fellow agent when he started out, a pair of overly extravagant silk ones with a king pattern. Of course, they look like Neal was meant to wear them, even with his baggy sleeping pants and a napkin on his lap.

"Those are mine, you know," Peter says.

"He never wears them," El says before Neal can respond, coming through the door with a bowl of eggs, toast points rimming the edge. Peter straightens his tie and doesn't bother arguing; Neal grins at him when he takes a seat.

"I figured," Neal says. He takes a bite of eggs from his fork when he dishes them out, and Peter doesn't watch the way his lips wrap around, and he definitely doesn't feel El's bare foot running up the inseam of his suit pants.

Peter isn't entirely hungry, and they don't need to be into the office for another hour, an hour he knows he can't fill up with just breakfast, but a fact that no one else at the table seems to have a problem with. Having Neal in the house makes him anxious, like the rules are different; El certainly seems to think the rules are different. She'd been more vocal in bed the night before, and all Peter could think about was Neal two rooms away, sleeping with his bare skin on their guest sheets.

The more Peter looks at Neal -- can't help it, he's used to watching Neal, trying to figure out what he'll do next -- he finds that Neal is grinning just a little different, that his eyes are a little brighter than they have been. El doesn't seem to notice; when Peter looks at her she is not so inconspicuously following the lines of Neal's chest down with her eyes. Over breakfast, and it's entirely too early for all of this. Not that Peter isn't a morning person, because he is, just --

Neal's laughing, and Peter realizes around his eggs that he wasn't actually paying attention, and El's laughing too -- Peter looks at them alternately.

"I thought you were a morning person," Neal says, grinning around a toast point, smeared with Peter's favorite jam.

"I am," Peter assures him, as if he was following the conversation. He reaches out for the last toast point before Neal can get to it, smears it with jam and reaches down with his free hand to pull and hold El's ankle up on his thigh, stopping her foot from it's motion along his calf. She laughs, light, on her side of the table.

"How are your limits doing?" Neal asks, suddenly, after a gap of silence. Peter finishes swallowing his bite of toast with only minor difficulty and looks at El, first, who shrugs, mouth parted in -- slightly gleeful, if Peter is reading it right, and of course she'd be amused that Neal _knew_, she probably told him herself -- surprise.

Peter turns to stare Neal down, but Neal actually looks a little curious, a little earnest. Peter really, really isn't ready for the game he and El have going on to extend to Neal, not yet, but he supposes Neal has already been apart of it from the beginning knowingly or not.

"They're holding up," Peter says, a response he would normally give to El, usually in their living room, catching up on the day and working their way up to something more. Peter's limits _are_ fine, he doesn't even want to know where they stop. He does, but that's in theory, that's with El's legs wrapped around him or with his head between her thighs as she talks down to him -- it's not actually with Neal in the room.

"That's a shame," Neal says, an echo of the kitchen before with only the slightest frown, eyes still bright. "I should get dressed, then."

El laughs, low and a little delighted. Peter wishes he'd had a mimosa with breakfast instead of just coffee. Neal makes good mimosas. "Did you have something planned?" El asks, playing along.

Neal shrugs, standing. His muscles move fluidly under his skin when he stretches, pants running low, and El's foot moves in a languid circle under Peter's fingers, her toes curling as she watches Neal.

"I was going to steal one of Peter's ties for today," Neal says, thoughtfully, "but that's about all I had planned out so far." He says it lightly, amused, smiles at El and finishes his coffee before setting it back on the table.

"The tricky thing about renovations," Neal says before turning away from the table, taking care to fold his napkin back up on his plate and push his chair in, "especially in old buildings like June's, is that you never know how long they are going to take."

El nods -- Peter's entire household is out to get him. "You don't," El agrees, grinning back at Neal. They definitely talked about -- something -- while Peter was getting dressed. Or before that. He should be better about not leaving them alone.

"Plenty of time to make plans if I need to," Neal says, nodding back at El. He turns to Peter, walking around the table and pausing to put a hand on his shoulder. Peter levels him with a look, raising an eyebrow -- he can't actually think of an appropriate way to handle Neal, or even El, right now, so it's the best he can do.

Neal squeezes his fingers into Peter's shoulder, once, his own version of El patting Peter's shoulder to comfort him. "Do you want me to get you a different tie while I'm upstairs?" Neal asks, easily, "I know you have a better one with that suit that El bought you two years ago, when --"

Peter rolls his eyes and then rolls his shoulders back when Neal takes his hand back. "I don't want to know," he says, cutting Neal off.

"So I'll bring you the tie," Neal says, decisively, and for a split second Peter thinks Neal is just going to -- lean down and kiss him good morning in an imitation of El, but he doesn't, and Peter doesn't even bother not sinking back into his chair as Neal's footsteps fade up the stairs.

"So," El starts, standing to grab the dishes.

Peter closes his eyes, "I don't want to know from you either," he says, because he does, but not right now.

El leans down and presses her lips in a smile against his forehead while his eyes are shut. "We've got a week," she says, which is really give or take, they don't actually know how long Neal is going to stay -- he could stay forever, even, and Peter pretends the thought is horrifying for the sake of his own sanity, even though it really, really isn't a horrifying thought at all. (Waking up to Neal in his kitchen every morning would not be the worst thing, probably. Definitely.)

"We do," he agrees, even though El has already gone to the kitchen. Peter stands and stretches, takes his time, and mentally prepares himself for the week, heading into the kitchen after her to do the dishes as Neal's footsteps follow him back from down the stairs.

Neal, while Peter is turned and unprepared, slips Peter's tie off his neck from behind, just barely pressed against Peter's back as he continues sponging down the dishes, El watching from the side of the counter, filling her coffee cup to bring to work.

Neal deftly ties the new one -- Peter doesn't look down to see which one it is, but he knows it's the blue tie that Neal has made a point to compliment twice, and wardrobe compliments are very infrequently bestowed on anything Peter wears, so he definitely remembers each one. Neal's hands linger a little around Peter's throat, too, his nose near Peter's ear, his chest against Peter's back. Peter, though, finishes soaping up the bowl that had eggs in it and only remembers to breathe out when Neal steps back, while he watches from the corner of his vision as Neal twirls El around the kitchen to some imaginary song, probably Sinatra, because that makes sense when Peter thinks about it, and his apprehension melts a little into -- into something else, into something acknowledging that things may be able to fall into place -- for the week ahead when Neal dips El down with a hand on her back, both of them grinning and taking just a little bit too long to straighten out.


End file.
